Plane vs SmartSuite
Side-by-side trajectory, velocity, and editorial themes.
Plane pushes AI into pages and turns itself into a platform you can publish MCP apps from.
Plane, the open-source project-management tool, is shipping a dense stream of features on two fronts: an in-product query language (PQL) that now runs across dashboards, widgets, and its AI chat, and AI authoring embedded directly into Pages. Underneath, it has been maturing the fundamentals — a redesigned roles-and-permissions system, Epics as a first-class work item type, and the ability to publish MCP applications from Plane itself.
The arc is Plane becoming both an AI-native workspace and an extensible platform. PQL is turning it into a queryable data layer that the AI chat sits on top of, while MCP app publishing signals ambitions beyond a single tool toward being a substrate other agents and apps build on. Expect continued convergence of the AI, query, and pages surfaces, with enterprise-grade access control as the foundation.
The next moves likely deepen the AI-plus-PQL loop — more natural-language querying and AI actions across work items and dashboards — and expand the MCP app ecosystem now that publishing is live.
SmartSuite grinds through Forms 2.0, governance, and an AI Center refresh — no-code aimed at GRC and PMO.
SmartSuite is a no-code work-management platform positioning hard at regulated operations — GRC, ITSM, PMO, and service desk. The current release stream is dominated by three arcs: a year-long Forms 2.0 buildout, a Default Values framework spanning field types, and governance features like Dynamic Record Permissions. Its AI Center keeps a multi-provider, bring-your-own-model catalog (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini) current.
The roadmap reads as methodical breadth rather than big bets: forms are becoming a first-class internal submission surface, record- and field-level permissions are getting granular for auditors, and automation runs are gaining end-to-end traceability. The AI Center is maintained as a cost-tiered model layer rather than a differentiated capability, tracking new flagship releases as they ship.
Expect the Forms 2.0 and Default Values rollouts to keep shipping incrementally, and the AI Center to track new flagship models with tier reclassifications rather than net-new AI features.
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